Mobile Loitering: public infrastructure for a highly gendered urban context

By Mariam Kamara and Elizabeth Golden

Niger’s capital Niamey, like other cities in
sub-Saharan Africa, is growing rapidly, and the implementation of the government’s
current vision for the city–Niamey Nyala,
or the ‘Niamey Beautiful’ plan–provides the impetus for this project. By navigating
the line between formal and informal, permanent and fixed, the city is calibrated to increase the participation
of women and girls in urban public life.

City
Streets in Africa

Currently,
unprecedented growth is transforming many urban areas in Africa. Strict
colonial planning has given way to a more complex network of human infrastructure that has reshaped city streets to meet economic
needs and satisfy social desires.1 Streets have become a mega-public space, and a source of infinite loopholes, to be exploited by a city’s inhabitants in imaginative ways. (Fig. 1)

But
streets in many African cities cannot always
be defined as ‘public’ in the traditional Western sense, as their occupation is
often segregated along class, gender, or age lines. In the
context of a Muslim city, situated in a predominantly Muslim (albeit secular)
country, a woman’s presence outside of the home–for purposes other than running
errands, conducting business, or going to school–is easily questioned by
society. 'Mobile loitering', is one
tactic developed by women and girls in Niamey to circumvent this type of public
scrutiny. Women are able to inhabit the street
by using their journey to and from social calls as a pretext, while enjoying
relative privacy by simply remaining on the move. These flâneries féminines are
a valued source of entertainment and knowledge in a city where little space is
allocated to leisure or educational activities. (Fig.
2)

Designing Pretexts for Mobile Loitering

This proposal–a planned route
through the city–formalizes mobile loitering as a camouflage and pretext,
offering women and girls destinations/justifications for occupying city streets.
A lightweight infrastructure marks the path, establishing a framework for
‘takeover’ actions, similar to those observed in the informal city. (Fig. 3)

Stations for fitness, group
study, health education, and shopping, punctuate the four-mile route, connecting
major public spaces currently used by Niamey’s youth. (Fig. 4) The route’s hallmark–a shading
system made of local woven mats–hovers over exposed city streets. (Fig. 5) The activity stations generate varying levels of gender specificity
depending on the amount of people at any given location. Amenities such as
markets or fairs, for example, bring an influx of women to deserted parts of
the city typically considered dangerous for females. (Fig. 6) In
densely populated areas with higher levels of foot traffic, structured
community led programs offer health education and mentoring solely for women
and girls. (Fig. 7) Mixed gendered activities such as study carrels
and fitness stations are situated along the route at regular intervals. (Fig. 8)

The proposed
route establishes a gently subversive framework that introduces new
possibilities for the women and girls of Niamey. Legitimizing and increasing the
female presence in public will gradually change social prejudices over time.

Notes:

1 AbdouMaliq
Simone, For the
City Yet to Come: Changing African Life in Four Cities, Duke University Press, Durham
and London (2004)

kassandramiracle· Dec 5, 18 2:52 am

Issues of the mobiles have been done for the general items for the humans. It has been identified for the movement of the best dissertation service reviews for all items for the humans. The same identification is I improved for the good and all refined shapes for thermals in life.